Special Topics in Critical Management Studies

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• reflect on own practice as future managers and re-assess personal and professional futures.
• critically assess dominant business models and critically discuss and propose alternatives;
• identify contemporary themes, and through conducting literature reviews, present reflexive analysis;
• explain the importance of alternative approaches to organizations that will tackle social problems such as climate change, migration, inequalities, financial crisis and poverty;

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• conduct independent research using a range of information sources;
• use a wide range of intellectual ideas, tools, techniques and analytical thinking to enrich and advance your arguments;
• write well-crafted critical reviews and present them in a well-structured manner.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• different organisational approaches that address challenges in the world of work in the 21st century.
• the context, major events and trends in the history of these themes and how they relate with debates in business, ethics, equality and sustainable organizational practice;
• the key contemporary debates in the field of Management and Organisation Studies;

The topics covered in this module will include:

• Introduction to critical management and organization studies
• Approaches in contemporary organization studies (A&B)
• Narratives, discourse and identities in organisations
• Organisational surveillance and control in 21st century
• Uberization of work: The rise of the gig economy and the future of work
• ‘Ethical organisations’: A paradox?
• The future of work
• Alternative forms of organizing: Social & Solidarity economy
• Communities, CSR & social change

Teaching and learning methods

The module will be taught through a range of methods including lectures, class discussions, guided reading, small group work followed by group presentations and discussions, exploration of interactive case studies/papers, and videos. You will be supported by published course materials and VLE.

Weekly lectures – These are large group sessions where the main theme of the week/ lecture will be discussed. Everyone enrolled on the module will be expected to attend and contribute to the weekly sessions.

Seminars– This constitutes a highly interactive part of the module: The students will be assigned to work groups (of 4-5 students) from the Week 1. Groups will be responsible for reading around 1 topic every other week (2hr-seminars) to share with the rest of the class on pre-assigned seminar topics/ case studies and readings.

A great part of your learning will take place during preparation for the presentations, and class discussions that will follow.

Resources & Reading list

Journal Articles

Fleming, P. (2017). The human capital hoax: Work, debt and insecurity in the era of Uberization. Organization Studies, 38(5), pp. 691-709.

Daskalaki, M., Fotaki, M. & Sotiropoulou, I. (2018). Values Practices and Community Organizing: The Case of Alternative Exchange Networks. Organization Studies, 40(11), pp. 1741-1765.

Ahsan, M. (2018). Entrepreneurship and ethics in the sharing economy: A critical perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 161(1), pp. 19-33.

Voronov, M. (2008). Toward engaged critical management studies.. , 15(6), pp. 939-945.

Wood, A., Graham, M. & Lehdonvirta, V. (2019). Good gig, bad gig: Autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy. Work, Employment and Society, 33(1), pp. 56-75.

Fleming, Peter, Carl Rhodes, and Kyoung-Hee Yu. (2019). On why Uber has not taken over the world. Economy and Society, 48(2).

Daskalaki, M., C. Butler and J. Petrovic (2016). Somewhere in-between: Narratives of Place, Identity and Translocal Work. Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(2), pp. 184-198.

Fournier, V. & Grey, C. (2000). At the Critical Moment: Conditions and Prospects for Critical Management Studies. Human Relations, 53(1), pp. 7-3.

Ibarra-Colado, E. (2006). Organization studies and epistemic coloniality in Latin America: thinking otherness from the margins. Organization, 13(4), pp. 463-488.

Ibarra, H., & Barbulescu, R. (2010). Identity as narrative: Prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of management review, 35(1), pp. 165-154.

Hatch, M. J., & Schultz, M.. The dynamics of organizational identity. 2002, 55(8), pp. 989-1018.

Brown, A. D. (2015). Identities and identity work in organizations. International journal of management reviews, 17(1), pp. 20-40.

Daskalaki, M., Hjorth, D. & Mair, J. (2015). Are Entrepreneurship, Communities and Social Transformation Related?. Journal of Management Inquiry, 24(2), pp. 419-423.

Sveningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle. Human relations, 50(10), pp. 1163-1193.

Textbooks

Linstead, S.L., Fulop, L. and Lilley, S. (2009). Management and Organisation: A Critical Text.. Palgrave.

Tadajewski, M., Maclaran, P., & Parsons, E. (2011). Key concepts in critical management studies. Sage.

Hamilton L.L. Mitchell & A. Mangan (2019). Contemporary Issues in Management, A Critical Management Approach. (2nd edition). Edward Elgar.

Parker, M., Stoborod, K., & Swann, T. (2020). Anarchism, Organization and Management: Critical Perspectives for Students. Routledge.

Towers-Clark, Charles (2019). The uberization of work: Pros and cons of the gig economy. Forbes.

Grey, C. (2009). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying organizations. 2nd Edition.. Sage Publications Ltd.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External